Purposeful employee engagement

What do we mean by purposeful employee engagement? What are the benefits of this as we start to think about what’s important in being part of a team that makes a difference?

All of these questions, and more can be asked when we start to explore the benefits of employee engagement by understanding our purpose and values.

It’s important to ask yourself – ‘what’s my purpose here?’ A big question that needs time and space to be able to reflect and consider what this means for you. Only then can you start to lead, empower and engage your teams with authenticity and gratitude.

Once, you’ve explored and come up with your purpose, the next step is to talk about it with your team. Start to identify what your teams purpose is so that you can encourage great teamwork, which in turn creates a team that wants to work together, is willing to collaborate, looks out for each other and gets the job done. Who doesn’t want that? We spend the majority of our working lives with other people and therefore the ability to get along well, collaborate and look out for each other is paramount in thriving in the world of work today.

But first we have to star

t with understanding what are the 4 key things that crossover to start to form our purpose. These are:

1. Passion – what do you really love about what you do; how do you engage with others so they want to come along with you and be part of your team?

2. Expertise – what are you super good at; what are you expert in; what makes you stand out from the crowd?

3. Talents – what skills do you have that enables you to build trust and respect; how do you demonstrate these talents to others so they can see the value you bring?

4. Values – what are you core values; what enables you to navigate your way through life; what helps you to make decisions?

Once you start to identify what these are you can then see your ‘why’ for doing what you do. Knowing your ‘why’ enables you to focus on what’s important and be able to contribute to the world with passion, expertise and talents that you bring. Wow! Who wouldn’t want that? To then live your life with intent you’re able to understand the ‘how’ and the ‘what’ to living a purposeful life.

Knowing your purpose will also impact on other areas of your life – your wellbeing, your ability to make great decisions, your resilience, your motivation, your relationships with others. This then ensures that you, and those around you, benefit from you being you and living the life you want to be living.

So you’ll now be wondering how can you do this for your team right? Easy, it’s the same principles in identifying, as a team, what are the passions, expertise, talents and values that your team have.

A great way to do this with your team is to visualise what this means. So get busy with flip charts, pens, pictures – whatever brings the conversation to life. Create a safe-space to show a level of vulnerability and opportunity to explore and be creative.

Take time to map out and answer these questions as a team:

• When do we feel alive?

• What are the strengths that we each bring?

• Where do you think you are at your most useful in this team?

• What does success mean for us?

• What are you passionate about in what we do as a team?

• What impact do we want to have as a team?

• How will you know you matter to this team?

Then, once you’ve looked at the responses, identify what’s important to you as a team. From here you can start to align your goals and know what and how you need ‘to be’ in order to live your life ‘on purpose’ and create a sense of fulfilment and belonging for all.

The benefits of engaging with your team in this way, creates an environment where people want to come to work; they have a true sense of belonging and know that they can contribute in a way with no-judgement or critique that puts them down rather than lifts them up.

We all have a purpose in life and knowing what this is means enables us to come off of auto-pilot and, with intent, we can choose how we show up each and every day. We want to maximise our potential and we want to know that we’ve contributed to the success of the team so what’s stopping you from identifying the foundations of successful employee engagement? Hopefully the answer is nothing!

Laura Thomson-Staveley is founder and leadership coach at Phenomenal Training and co-host of Secrets from A Coach podcast. For more information visit: phenomenaltraining.com and secretsfromacoach.com